My experience in an AT&T store (a rant, of sorts)

So this isn't intended to be a platform warrior's take on which mobile device is best, or anything like that. I'm simply complaining about my experience in an AT&T store when shopping for smartphones.

First off, the staff was friendly, and actually tried to be useful. So unless I call something out specifically, I'm also not complaining about them. It's really about the store itself, and what I found there.

So my intent was to walk in, find out if they were accepting Lumia 900 pre-orders, get any info about they might have, and go on my merry way. This is what actually happened.

I walk in, and the concierge asks me what I'm here for. I tell her I was interested in the upcoming Nokia Lumia 900. She looked at me like I was from another planet, said "I don't even know what that is", and proceeded to put me in the queue for a sales associate.

I wandered over to the smartphones, and noticed that everything is Android. All branding, all messaging, all product placement is Android. I finally found the iPhones and the Windows Phones in a corner of the smartphone area. I expected that for the Windows Phone (kind-of, more in a minute), but to see a marquee item like the iPhones treated like "just another phone" honestly surprised me. I don't know if it's because AT&T likes the incredible control they exert over Android phones, better margins, or what, but Android is the hero of AT&T stores around me. (Actually, to be fair, accessories dominate the store. You have to wade through them to look at any phone, even the Androids)

After that brief interlude, a sales associate comes up and asks how she can help. I detail again my overall happiness with my Windows Phone, and my desire to pre-order the upcoming Lumia 900. Again, I get a look like I'm speaking in tongues, but she at least sees dollar signs behind me signing a contract. She says she'll find out as much info as they have, and come back to me ASAP.

I'm happy with this response, as it gives me a chance to peruse the Android hardware AT&T has in the store. I've been tough on Android in the past, and it's been a year since I was using one daily. I figure maybe I'm being too hard on them, and should give them a fair shake. I pick up one of the midrange models (forgive me if I don't remember any names here, the blessing of choice with Androids is also the curse of niche product naming) and press a random app. It immediately crashes and asks me to send an error report. Being the good little techie I am, I do so, and then the error reporting software crashes and asks me to send a report about that. Ooooohkay. I'll go a little higher-end. I grab one of the Androids that's $300 with contract and start swiping around. Lag. Lots of lag. This thing is one of the most expensive phones in the store, and I'm waiting on it to get me to a screen. That's just silly. I go to one marked as a 3D phone (the kind that doesn't need glasses). It's responsive, and the screen looks pretty nice with 3D off. I turn on a 3D app and suddenly experience vertigo. The 3DS doesn't do that to me. I turn on a movie just to see if it was a wonky game. Nope, it's making my head hurt now. Finally, I go to this 5-inch phone/tablet combo that actually looks really cool. It's ginormous for a phone (I like ginormous phones(Chrome recognizes "ginormous" as a word, awesome)), but just the right size for a little note-taking pad. I find the only on that actually has a stylus (out of 4) and open up the notes app on the home screen. It only accepts keyboard input. Let me reiterate that. the phone/tablet combo with a dedicated stylus in the AT&T store only had one model with an actual stylus, and the primary notes app on the thing didn't take stylus input.

While some of those are Android annoyances, I think in reality most of those are AT&T/manufacturer issues. How on earth are you going to place a phone on the floor that crashes the moment you touch it? Are you really going to advertise a tablet phone with a stylus without making sure all your floor models (4, which, by the way, was more floor models than any other phone, and had more posters up than anything else) actually have a stylus and actually have a notes app that takes stylus input on the home screen? These are simple things AT&T could be doing to make those products more attractive. I have officially been scared away from Android again, and I think it's more AT&T's fault than the actual OS.

So by this time, the sales associate comes back, and is obviously not happy with the news. Not only does she not have anything on the Lumia, the store manager doesn't, and he doesn't even know the release date. The release date that has been published by Nokia as March 18th. The release date that is on AT&T's road map as March 18th. The release date everyone and their dog who cares about the Lumia know about now. And the manager of a mobile phone-selling company with exclusive access to the world's first LTE Windows Phone knows nothing about it. Godammit AT&T and Nokia. Where is the marketing? Where is the promotional material I can take back with me? Where's a goddamn demo phone and pre-order list? I know Nokia can market these things. Just look at some of the crazy displays and events they've been doing everywhere that isn't the US for the Lumia phone series. What happened here, Nokia? New York is not the entire US. Hell, I'm not even confident I could walk into an AT&T store on the 18th and actually walk out with a Lumia 900 at this rate.

So today I came away utterly empty-handed, and rather despondent with my choice of moving back to AT&T just because they remain the least-shitty of all carrier and phone options. :/ While the sales people were nice, they knew nothing that wasn't Android, and didn't care in the least about what was coming down the pipe.

I think in general, every carrier store is like that. Where I am (canada), I've never seen any phone/carrier store (corporate or reseller) where the employees knows anything more than the average geek that spent 30 minutes researching on howardforums.com... Plus employees are rarely tech enthusiasts who keep up with the latest phones and trends. All they know is the 5-10 phones corporate sends down to them every quarter with the 1-page feature list that they'll never actually read.

So today I came away utterly empty-handed, and rather despondent with my choice of moving back to AT&T just because they remain the least-shitty of all carrier and phone options.

Is this a regional thing, or specific to your particular coverage? Around here (Pacific NW), AT&T is generally considered the carrier you tolerated to get an iPhone.

I travel a lot, and T-Mobile has a lot of dead spots around my current home office, and my clients' offices. Sprint is a non-starter at the moment, even though I did like them ok when I had them. AT&T's coverage where I am is the best, and their only competitor around where I travel is Verizon, which as I mentioned before, I won't use, as they don't have decent Windows phones, and no roadmap for them.

I just went to an ATT store a few weeks ago to get a Galaxy Note, and worked with a sales Rep who obviously took his training very seriously but probably did not start out as a techie. Very nice, very helpful dude. Ended up teaching him about frequency bands, differences between processors, etc.

I honestly wish I could go back to T-Mo. AT&T is hopelessly oversaturated in DC and probably won't get better anytime soon. In the event that T-Mo gets a quad-core Note I will probably pay off my contract and get that.

I agree that your Android problems were AT&T related. Can't wait to get the International version I have on order.

Regarding the Android crashing, don't forget, they're demo phones. Meaning, 2000 people have fingered that phone, THIS WEEK ALONE. It likely has eleventy-billion apps on it, probably half of which are running in the background. When I went to look at the Galaxy Nexus on Verizon and the Epic Touch 4G on Sprint, both of the demo's ran like shit until I cleared their memory. Those are some of the fastest Androids with the most memory available today.

My Epic Touch 4G, which is the Skyrocket II on ATT (both Galaxy S II based handsets) is WICKED fast. I have nearly zero complaints with this phone. Nor does my girlfriend and she's able to find something wrong with anything!

Regarding the Android crashing, don't forget, they're demo phones. Meaning, 2000 people have fingered that phone, THIS WEEK ALONE. It likely has eleventy-billion apps on it, probably half of which are running in the background. When I went to look at the Galaxy Nexus on Verizon and the Epic Touch 4G on Sprint, both of the demo's ran like shit until I cleared their memory. Those are some of the fastest Androids with the most memory available today.

They need some kind of standard reflash, reboot, or something, because the average user isn't going to think about that, they're going to think about the fact that it's performing poorly because other people.

Also, iPhones and Windows Phone don't have that issue. Have people fuck with the all you want, they're still going to run about the same, just with a bigger app list.

Regarding the Android crashing, don't forget, they're demo phones. Meaning, 2000 people have fingered that phone, THIS WEEK ALONE. It likely has eleventy-billion apps on it, probably half of which are running in the background. When I went to look at the Galaxy Nexus on Verizon and the Epic Touch 4G on Sprint, both of the demo's ran like shit until I cleared their memory. Those are some of the fastest Androids with the most memory available today.

They need some kind of standard reflash, reboot, or something, because the average user isn't going to think about that, they're going to think about the fact that it's performing poorly because other people.

Also, iPhones and Windows Phone don't have that issue. Have people fuck with the all you want, they're still going to run about the same, just with a bigger app list.

Except I'm pretty sure that using the windows phone marketplace requires a windows live ID. I'm basing this on when I tried to update the apps on the windows phone at my local Vodafone it asked for one. I can't even remember not having my windows live ID on my own phone.

It's a real shame since windows phones are best demonstrated with real content. Preferably your own.

Except I'm pretty sure that using the windows phone marketplace requires a windows live ID. I'm basing this on when I tried to update the apps on the windows phone at my local Vodafone it asked for one. I can't even remember not having my windows live ID on my own phone.

It's a real shame since windows phones are best demonstrated with real content. Preferably your own.

That was one thing they did appear to do right at the AT&T store, all phones had some generic user so you could mess with the apps.

Except I'm pretty sure that using the windows phone marketplace requires a windows live ID. I'm basing this on when I tried to update the apps on the windows phone at my local Vodafone it asked for one. I can't even remember not having my windows live ID on my own phone.

It's a real shame since windows phones are best demonstrated with real content. Preferably your own.

That was one thing they did appear to do right at the AT&T store, all phones had some generic user so you could mess with the apps.

The Lumias I've seen in stores so far have a demo user that receives occasional IMs, calendar updates and Facebook posts. I'm guessing that Nokia have some sort of demo user group that they let various stores pick something from. It's quite smart. I even think that they could be used to send messages between stores by choosing various contacts. It could get hilarious...

I had a similar experience in a 1st-party AT&T store here in LA. A few months ago, perhaps a week after the new Blackberry models had allegedly been released, I walked in and asked about Teh Shiney New Blackberry Phones!

After being shown a few old models I finally got the sales guy to show me a Bold 9900. I wanted also to the see the new touchscreen model and the new slider model, and no one had any idea what I was talking about. After asking for about the 10th time about the NEW model (no, not the old model you've attempted to show me 9 times now) he finally went to the back to ask the manager, and 10 minutes later he came out to tell me that AT&T doesn't have the new touch or the slider models yet, and no one knows when they will

As with Happysin's first visit, there was zero marketing literature and zero employee training for this flagship launch.

As it was, I test drove the 9990 and was tremendously disappointed. The browsing experience was still laggy and buggy, and the camera sucked.

I was shopping for my Dad, so I ended up handing him down my iPhone 4 and getting a 4S for myself.

Galaxy Note! That was the damn tablet/phone things AT&T just went full-retard on in their store.

The note is nice, but not every app supports pen input. Kinda a welduh. Surprised there isn't a handwriting recognition IME, though, somewhere in the settings. Then it'd be there for all apps ... Starkruzr?

Quote:

I thought Android was supposed to magically clear the memory and that backgrounded apps don't use any resources. ಠ_ಠ

Surprised there isn't a handwriting recognition IME, though, somewhere in the settings

This. There were three different keyboards installed, and no one wrote a "keyboard" where you just write with the stylus? Seems like if you did that, you'd have universal handwriting recognition everywhere a keyboard was in the interface (which is, unsurprisingly, how Win7 and Win8's keyboard works).

Surprised there isn't a handwriting recognition IME, though, somewhere in the settings

This. There were three different keyboards installed, and no one wrote a "keyboard" where you just write with the stylus? Seems like if you did that, you'd have universal handwriting recognition everywhere a keyboard was in the interface (which is, unsurprisingly, how Win7 and Win8's keyboard works).

Well I think there's a palm / recognition IME in market somewhere. Odd that there isn't one installed by default.

I have to agree with OP. As much as of an Apple critic as I tend to be, I go into Verizon, AT&T and Best Buy stores all the time just to play with the devices and listen to what actual consumers are saying, and I always leave in massive disappointment with the setup.For one, it is unacceptable to have plastic stickers over the screens of all your smart phones. I can't for the life of me figure out how this still happens.Furthermore, the phones are always laid out carelessly, sometimes with really obnoxious wires that tether you to 6" from the dash, or a zip-tie right over the center of the phone. They are mashed together and indistinguishable from afar. Then there's the ignorance of the sales people. All the time I hear customer questions get ridiculous answers. I've talked to sales people at Verizon and AT&T who don't even know what an operating system is or why it should be upgraded. I guess they just think Android is a brand name of some sort.Then you walk into the Apple store, and although it's crowded, all of these problems are gone. Everyone is happy loitering about. It's open and bright. There are no broken units or ridiculous wires.I guess as a scientist I haven't experienced working in a bureaucracy enough to understand how these companies are so awful at responding to the market. These are not difficult concepts.

^^ This is one thing Microsoft ripped of right from Apple. The Microsoft store is a place of wonder and play. With the Kintekts, Surfaces, Windows Phones, and tablets all out and ready to be played with (and every time I have gone, much of those mobbed by enthusiastic kids), and staff that is not only knowledgeable, but enthusiastic about upcoming offerings, you can't help but enjoy going in.

^^I know you're joking, but I saw another one in the Century City shopping mall yesterday. It was right at closing time, so I didn't get a chance to gauge the traffic. But the store itself seems to be a well-executed ripoff

There's an Apple Store in that same mall, so next time I'm in West LA I'm going to make the pilgrimage and check out both.

I've had the same experience at Verizon stores. Half the phones don't work, some of them don't have any connectivity, some of them crash left and right and most of the stores I've been in have only one (or none) display model for each phone model they sell. So, if someone is sitting there reading the internet on it, you have to sit there and wait for them to finish up. I guess it's hard to have multiples of each model on display given how many models there are, but they should at least all have connectivity, function properly, and have the most recent firmware release installed.

Happysin, have you read anything about how much the lumia 900 might cost? I read on one site it will cost $99 with a 2-year contract but wasn't sure. I would make the switch over to AT&T but their coverage sucks in my area. T-Mobile probably won't get the 900 until the summer so I might have to switch over to a Android phone instead because T-Mobile only have 2 Windows phones.

So today I came away utterly empty-handed, and rather despondent with my choice of moving back to AT&T just because they remain the least-shitty of all carrier and phone options. :/ While the sales people were nice, they knew nothing that wasn't Android, and didn't care in the least about what was coming down the pipe.

You have to look at it from a their perspective. If you want to live in the 21st century you can do one of three things. Pay the gatekeeper, build your own cellular network or go back to smoke signals.

Actually, I was speaking in metaphor. The reason why apple and microsoft build multi-million dollar stores that are staffed with intelligent salespeople and functional displays is because their bottom line depends on x-number of products that are sold, period!Now when it comes to our cellular overlords, They dont give a flying fuck if the phones are inoperable and the staff are a bunch of dimwits, because realistically you only have 2 big players in the field. Their livelyhood is the network, not trying to sell the latest fad device to the masses. To them the phone is only an enticement to a contract. You can buy any phone you want from anywhere you desire but it's not going to work unless you pay them.

I would really argue T-Mobile is the least shitty. They are GSM-based, and thus international-standards based, their network is not overloaded in any city I've ever been to and ALWAYS works, and their customer service is top notch. Also they don't hate their customers the way ATT and VzW do. The only reason I left is that they don't and probably won't ever carry the phone I want.